


something hot in a cold country

by attheborder



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Dirty Talk, First Time, M/M, Oral Sex, Pining, Praise Kink, Sex Crying, Wait! They Don't Love You Like I Love You, if woobifying these crusty cannibals is wrong i don't wanna be right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:34:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25522933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/pseuds/attheborder
Summary: Tozer’s of a height with Tommy, and much broader besides, but he seems very small now; as if he were folded in on himself like a magician’s trick flower, preparing to hide itself inside a sleeve. Tommy might wrap him in his arms and stop him from shrinking further, stop the slow bleed-out that he worries is invisibly draining him, even now.
Relationships: Thomas Armitage/Sgt Solomon Tozer
Comments: 18
Kudos: 56





	something hot in a cold country

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Poose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poose/gifts).



Tommy wonders why there is no lieutenant’s gun to his back, why the noose up at Mr. Honey’s shambolic, makeshift gallows does not hungrily await his neck, too. 

To be hanged besides Sergeant Tozer, and Mr. Hickey as well— is that not what he deserves? After all he’d issued the guns of his own volition: eager to be of use, eager to undermine the Captain’s mockery of authority, eager for Tozer to give him an approving nod for each man he armed.

The answer, as is the answer to so many questions in his life, is because he is unworthy. Unworthy of being a Marine; unworthy of the courage to claim responsibility for the kidnapping of Lady Silence and be whipped for it; unworthy of even being recognized and charged for his contributions to Hickey’s attempt at insurrection. 

And now the bravest man he’s known will be dead within the hour, without Tommy ever touching him, not once, not like he’s wanted to. 

Tommy has seen men hanged before, yes. The first time— that he can remember, that is— he couldn’t have been more than four, five years old, maybe. Penenden Heath was in its last days then as the site of executions in Chatham, the audiences still gathering at Gallows Hill weekly to watch criminals meet their ends. His father would bear him up on his shoulders, so he could have a better view of the men and women as they died. 

When he was seven they’d hanged John Dyke there for arson on Christmas Eve; the man was innocent, but the riotous crowd had not known that then, cheering as he stepped up and had his charges read. Soon after that the gallows had been moved to the square in front of Maidstone; he’d walk over the river with the other schoolboys at lunchtimes to bear witness.

“What’s that one done?” he remembered whispering to a boy, a little older than he, upon arriving late, and missing the magistrate’s pronouncement. 

The boy smiled wickedly down at him. “Stuck it in Mr. Stanton’s son, didn’t he? He’s a sodomite,” he said, and then the trapdoor dropped, the man’s neck had snapped, and Tommy and his friends had whooped and hollered with the rest. 

The dead man’s prick rose rapidly as he swung there in the breeze; a small wet spot blossomed on his flies where it was pressed hard up against, and something stirred in Tommy, something that fit snug and comfortable in his chest right alongside the familiar mortal thrill of seeing a man breathe his last. 

It had been another year or so before Tommy had learned precisely what a sodomite was, and only then, in recalling the hanged man and his tented trousers, had understood that he was one of them.  
  


***

Solomon Tozer doesn’t walk around as if he were well-endowed, which is how you can tell that he is. Tommy is fairly certain of this, after years of observation in close quarters. The sergeant has the easy, mature confidence of a man who could have whoever he chooses, but chooses not to, chooses to focus on his duties, focus on being a leader to his men. 

On Beechey, in the springtime, they’d been sent out on a hunting party together. Lieutenant Fairholme and Mr. Hartnell had split off to the west some time ago, and Tommy was alone with Sergeant Tozer for the first time. 

He hadn’t yet used his rifle. It hung loosely at his shoulder while he worked Irving’s telescope, spotting birds for the Sergeant to aim at.

Eventually they came across an outcrop of boulders. Tozer leaned his rifle against one, and seated himself with a grunt. “Gonna have a sit and a smoke,” he said, digging in the pocket of his slops.

“I’ll rest too,” said Tommy quickly, moving to lay the brace of gulls he was carrying on the rock. He was hardly tired, though, quite the opposite, was in fact jittery with sheer lucid proximity. 

“Nah. Come on, Mr. Armitage. Show me what you’ve got,” Tozer said, motioning to Tommy’s rifle. His voice was saturated with easy authority, thick like molasses and just as sweet. 

_I will. I’ll show you,_ thought Tommy. “Alright,” he said. He dropped the gulls, stuck the telescope back in his coat, and raised his rifle. 

Fifteen minutes later he bagged a massive tern in one shot, outweighing both of Tozer’s scraggly gulls put together. Tozer let out a long, low whistle. 

And then and there on that barren, cold plain Tommy had found his sorry tale tumbling out. As he spoke Tozer had stared at him silently through narrowed eyes, and Tommy feared mockery, or worse, indifference. 

But neither came. 

“A shot like that,” Tozer said, when Tommy had stuttered to his story’s end, “makes you a Marine in my eyes, no matter what that quack at the Admiralty said... _Private_ Armitage.” 

The winter after, when Tozer had made up the sides for _Terror_ ’s football leagues, playing against each other at first before the winner went up against _Erebus_ , he’d put Tommy right in alongside him. 

After a game in which they’d been narrowly defeated (the blame lying squarely on Manson’s unexpectedly deadly aim) the astounding heat below decks had, as usual, induced the men to strip to their smallclothes and further as soon as they reached the fo’c’sle. Tozer’s bare chest gleamed with sweat in the lamplight, and Tommy tried hard not to look. 

“We’ll get ‘em next time,” Tozer said, running his hands through his golden-brown hair, then clapping one, warm and solid, onto Tommy’s bare shoulder. 

Tommy heard it in his head like a chorus after that, Tozer’s _next time, next time,_ soothing himself whenever he got twisted up over the man in the neat red jacket. 

At Carnivale he’d helped Tozer carry Heather all the way to the festival tent, tended to him carefully while Tozer had supped with the rest of the Marines: a deserved rest. And Tozer had looked at him with such sheer open gratitude that Tommy believed, just for a moment, that the moment had finally come. 

But then the night had ended how it had, in smoke and screams, and then the madness of preparing to walk out had taken over. Little was exchanged between them that did not relate to Hickey’s plans. 

So now Tommy allows himself the hope, small but fervent, of having the comfort of seeing the Marine’s last cockstand, rising proud in death. 

And before he sees it he’ll hear Tozer’s final words, which surely will be inspiring. He’ll be unapologetic, brave; denouncing Crozier’s misrule in such a way as to inspire the men, so perhaps in the end he won’t die for naught: Tommy will take up his words as a rallying cry, carrying on in Tozer’s honor, bringing Hickey’s chosen few to safety on his own. 

Or perhaps he won’t, being a coward and all. Perhaps he’ll wait in his tent for Peglar and Hoar and Best to fall asleep, and then frig himself beneath his thin sheets to the remembered silhouette of Tozer’s handsome prick, spend weakly into his hand and then fall into fitful dreams of a dead man’s kiss. 

In the end, he never has to find out. The beast comes, the blood spills, and the rebels rush headlong into the fog, not looking back. Tommy is with them, and Tozer too. 

***

Hickey becomes abruptly convinced, perhaps three miles out from Terror Camp, that the creature is somewhere nearby. They quit their hauling at his orders in order to cower in the lee of the boat, while he hums something tuneless and strange, pacing back and forth in his trophy of an officer’s coat. 

What Hickey is thinking of, Tommy cannot hope to divine. It’s much easier to turn his attention to Tozer besides him, notice the skin at the sergeant’s neck breaking out into gooseflesh in the chill now that he isn’t straining at his harness. To notice the uncanny way he stares at his boots and twists his hands together and breathes, quick jerky huffs, seeming liable to shake apart, right there and then. 

With the beast perhaps closing in and knowing they might need Tozer’s shooting arm at any moment if they are to live, it’s the least Tommy can do to reach impulsively for his wrist, rub his thumb in slow, calming circles over the rabbiting pulse there, whispering “Tozer,” and then, quite hesitantly, “Solomon.” 

This is not the unrepentant sergeant marching confidently to his death— it’s not even the breezy, cocksure rebel who Tommy had saved from Lieutenant Little’s bullet with a carefully-timed blow, hardly two hours ago. 

What had Tozer seen back there in the chaos, that had hollowed out his eyes like this, put a tremor into his trigger-finger?

Tommy puts this question to words, but Tozer is silent for a long while. 

“Oh, Tommy,” he says eventually. He shakes his head and stares up at the empty sky and holds on tight to Tommy’s hand. 

  
  


***

Hickey gives Tozer the east and Daly the south, to scout for Crozier and the rest of the men, and to catch any sight they can of the beast before they set up their next camp. 

“Tommy, with me,” Tozer says, with a tip of his head, and Tommy goes. Without the gleaming white crossband drawn over his slops Tozer is more formless than usual; it has the effect of focusing Tommy’s imagination intently on the shape of him beneath it, the ripple of muscle, the notches at his sides where waist meets hips, remembered well from the humid aftermath of many a match. 

The boat and the men recede into a dark anomaly behind them, specks in the shale. For a while the only sound is their footsteps, the strange acoustics of the landscape amplifying every scrape of their boots. 

“Glad to see you with that,” Tozer says eventually, nodding at Tommy’s rifle. “Suits you. Always has.” 

Tommy stands up a little straighter, walks a little taller at that. He finds the confidence to ask, “Sol— were you scared?”

“To die? No,” Tozer says, definitively. “Not me. Not a Marine. But—” he pauses, adjusts his grip on his gun— “scared for you, maybe, yeah. How you would get on without Hickey and me, stuck with the rest of them. Weighed down and all.” Another pause, longer this time. “And you? How were you feeling, about to see me topped?” 

Tommy scratches at his beard, ever so casual, though his heart pounds as it realizes what his mouth is about to confess. “I didn’t want you to die. I felt sick, at what the Captain was saying, what he was doing. But… I would’ve had some pleasure from it, all the same… ” 

“Pleasure? … At me being _hanged?”_

“Your angel lust,” Tommy says quickly, clarifying as fast as he can. He tries to keep his voice light. Just a joke, if Tozer cares to take it as such. “Would’ve been a sight to see.” 

Tozer’s eyes crinkle, the spread of lines in their corners like rays from a warm sun. “Oh, Tommy boy,” he says, “yeah, you would’ve liked that, wouldn’t you? My last gift.” It’s not teasing. It’s not hard-judged or scathing. He takes Tommy at his word and even lets out a laugh, a throaty, gorgeous sound that the shale scatters like a flock of yellow birds dispersing. 

Then his smile fades, quick as it’d come, and he shoves a hand in the front pocket of his coat. Tommy can see it spasm inside, clutching at the fabric. “But I’m no angel. As far as you can get. It’s cause of me we’re stuck out here.” 

“Are you mad? Of course it isn’t.” 

“I asked Sir John to stay in the hunting blind,” says Tozer ruefully. “If he hadn’t been with us when it came, if he’d just gone back to the ship—”

“The bear still would’ve gotten him, Sol,” Tommy says. “It was out for blood, his blood. It wanted this for us. Wanted us cut off at the head, would’ve found a way eventually, no matter what.” 

“I wish I could believe you,” Tozer says. He picks up his pace, until he’s walking a few steps ahead. 

“Well,” says Tommy, not moving, “it was my fault it got Heather. I was on watch, I could’ve stopped it— it was because of me he ended up that way.”

He’s never spoken this aloud, though he’s long believed it. How could he forget the way Tozer looked up at him that night, knelt over Heather, eyes bright with what could only have been blame? Not to mention the sickly plunge of his heart when he passed the sick bay, spotted Tozer inside carefully minding Heather’s beard or nails. Surely he would not have felt so guilty were he truly innocent.

But Tozer stops where he is and spins to face Tommy, the storm gathering in his eyes visible even from a distance. “That’s not how it went, and you know it,” he says. “Don’t you fucking dare put that on your shoulders. I won’t have it, Tommy, I won’t.” 

“Then— then you agree,” Tommy says. He feels suddenly very light. “The bear would’ve gotten him, same as would’ve gotten Sir John. There’s nothing either of us could’ve done.” 

They reach an impasse, then, staring at each other across the shale. Eventually Tommy walks to rejoin Tozer and they set off again, moving across the landscape. The only living men for miles. 

“You alright?” Tommy asks, when the quiet gets too heavy. 

Tozer rubs his forehead with the back of his glove. “This place breathes like something sleeping. Doesn’t ring right to the ears. You’re damn lucky you can’t hear it proper, it’d get in you. Make your bones itch, right down to the marrow, waiting for it to wake up.” 

“You’ve got a way with words, Sol. Anyone ever tell you that?”

Tozer gives Tommy a sidelong glance. “Don’t be daft,” he says. 

“You do,” Tommy insists stubbornly. “When we get home, you ought to write up your memoirs. Make a mint. One sentence of yours could show up a whole chapter of Crozier’s.” 

Tozer scoffs. “Yeah, well, I’ll give you that,” he says. “The man couldn’t preach his way out of a fuckin’ parasol.” 

There’s still something he’s not telling Tommy, something he’s holding back, keeping his tone artificially airy as they rag on the man against who they’ve both now committed crimes punishable by death.

Tozer’s of a height with Tommy, and much broader besides, but he seems very small now; as if he were folded in on himself like a magician’s trick flower, preparing to hide itself inside a sleeve. Tommy might wrap him in his arms and stop him from shrinking further, stop the slow bleed-out that he worries is invisibly draining him, even now. 

But this reverie he quells, as quickly as it had come. Surely, the sergeant wouldn’t allow such a thing. 

Eventually, finding nothing, they turn back and head for where they came from. 

***

Tommy has been exhausted for weeks now; they all have. It’s easy enough to push past it long enough to get that day’s camp set up, to wait in line for slop from the cans, to sit there shoveling down mystery meat until his body’s loudest complaints are temporarily silenced. 

He watches Tozer slip inside Hickey’s newly established command tent and feels a familiar gnawing jealousy rising to take the place of hunger as he eats. Across the fire, through the smoke, Gibson picks listlessly at his meal, glancing up every so often towards Hickey’s sanctum— feeling the very same, possibly. 

Tommy had recognized Gibson for one of his own early on, had witnessed the cool, quiet certitude that trailed in his wake, the likely product of close to a decade learning to manage the delicate alchemy of stewardship and sex aboard a Navy ship. It was an art Tommy had not yet mastered, and he watched Gibson intently, hoping to pick up at least something. 

He’d expected Gibson to be the one to pull in a Marine that first year, or even one of the officers he served, perhaps that handsome, devout Irving, who was practically begging to be seduced— but then, curiously, he’d gone right for the scrawny caulker’s mate. 

It had been a good while before Tommy had realized the intelligence of Gibson’s pick, seen for himself Hickey’s smarts, followed him right out into the squalling dark to capture Lady Silence. 

But thinking highly of Gibson, recognizing his judgement in choosing Hickey, certainly doesn’t help when it comes to doing the same for Tozer. 

Because honestly, what does Tozer believe he’ll find in Hickey, other than someone who views him not as his own man, but a mere tool?

Hungry as he is Tommy can’t bear to eat another bite now. He hands his remaining share to Pilkington and slips back inside his tent, huddles on his pallet, imagining Tozer twisting his hand inside his coat and Hickey taking no notice, none at all.

Tozer’s entrance is just the wrong side of quiet, and Tommy doesn’t hear him come in; only when he catches a clear whiff of the sergeant’s scent does he realize he’s no longer alone.

He opens his eyes, in time to see Tozer taking off his overcoat and tossing it uncaring to the ground. There in his shirtsleeves and braces he stands, hunched over, one hand shoved in the pocket of his trousers, the other clutching at his own upper arm, as if for balance. 

Tommy is going to say something, though he’s not sure what: _When’s the last time someone touched you, Sol, where you wanted to be touched?_ maybe. Or, _He won’t ever see you, really. Not like I see you._

What ends up coming out is something hard and bitter, like a bit of metal poison picked from his plate. “You spent an awful long time in there. Letting him have his way with you, then?”

“That what you think goes on, Tommy?” says Tozer. He doesn’t sound angry; defeated, maybe, which is worse. “Me and Mr. Hickey?” 

“No. I don’t,” says Tommy, matter-of-fact. “You wouldn’t still be standing like that, if it had.” He nods at Tozer’s posture, defensive and diminished. 

“Have you got a problem with how I stand?”

“I do,” says Armitage. He gets up, steps towards Tozer. “I don’t like to see it. It isn’t right. Doesn’t suit you.”

He draws Tozer’s hand out of his pocket and Tozer lets him. He unfolds Tozer’s clenched fist and holds it, warm and solid, between his own palms. Tozer doesn’t move: not away, not towards. The lamp burbles in the corner and flickers, reflected, like a secret in Tozer’s eyes. 

Tozer is brave, Tommy knows. And he thought he knew the form of that bravery well enough, but suddenly, belatedly, there’s a brand new side to it. The latent obverse, the mirror image. How he makes room for the courage of others, gives it space to grow. 

_Show me what you’ve got._

Tommy takes aim, and fires. 

He leans in, close, closer than he’s ever come, his forehead touching Tozer’s, noses brushing, breath mingling. He brings a hand down to the front of Tozer’s trousers, calmly but insistently, breathes a little sigh of surprise when he finds what he’s looking for. 

“Tommy,” says Tozer carefully, “this what you want?” His breath is hot in Tommy’s good ear, his hand sweeping lightly over the dip of Tommy’s back, bringing him in closer. 

“I want it,” Tommy says, voice hitching slightly.

“My prick?” 

“Yes, Sol, yes.”

“Where? In your hand? Your mouth? Between your thighs?” 

“My mouth,” Tommy echoes back, maybe too quickly. “Can I—” he says, beginning to lower himself, but Tozer interrupts him. 

“Patience, Private,” he says, and softly pushes Tommy off and back. 

Not so long ago Tommy had been planning to pull himself off to the memory of Tozer’s last stand, so to speak; being denied it was no hardship, when he could instead have the relief that the man yet lived. 

But this, this is the real thing, realer than anything: Tozer is hardening before his eyes, practiced fingers working himself up to full prominence— and what a sight it is; Tommy feels his mouth fall open and stay there as he watches. 

“That look on your face, wipe it off. It’s just a prick like any other,” Tozer says. 

“Not just,” Tommy says, insistent. “It’s—” _don’t say big, don’t say big—_ “yours.” 

“Hm. Can’t argue with that.” 

Tommy gets down on his knees for Tozer, as if in a dream, approaching in reverence. He folds his sunburnt lips around the tip, as if to be precious, laving at Tozer’s slit with tender deliberation. 

“Don’t get shy now,” Tozer huffs. Tommy obediently slides his mouth further down, and then further, which possibly Tozer wasn’t expecting because he groans, hisses, “Ah, fuck— yes,” a thrilling sound. 

Tommy speeds his pace, flattens his tongue, feels the glorious stretch of his jaw as it tries to accommodate Tozer’s width. 

And Tozer is talking above him, almost a song: “If I’d known you had a mouth like that, Tommy Armitage, I would’ve had you our first night out from Greenhithe, ah, Christ, you’ll have me spend right down your throat, I’d have that, or I’d have it all over your pretty face, want to see you covered in it—” 

He goes on, a continuous stream of hoarse filth, lighting Tommy up from the inside as he narrows his mouth around Tozer’s cock. 

He’s not done this since before the expedition but it’s not exactly something you forget. Lieutenant Hodgson will tell you without prompting how he practices his scales even without his clavier, so as to not fall out of practice before they return home; and so too has Tommy practiced at this, in his dreams and in his head, a quixotic regiment.

Even so, Tommy gets sloppy, as his knees begin to ache; he can feel spit on his chin, hear the wretched, liquid noises coming from his own throat. Tozer winds a hand through Tommy’s mess of curls and tugs, gently and then, soon, not so gently at all, guiding Tommy back and forth on his cock, faster and rougher. 

Tommy can handle it, he can, he will, if it’s what Tozer wants, as long as Tozer keeps talking, low and rhythmic and stuttering occasionally, when Tommy takes him particularly deep.

“Your hair, your bloody hair, how d’you keep it so lovely out here, the only beautiful thing for miles around, looking like an angel— stained glass and wings, you’re a fucking angel, Tommy, yeah—” 

Tommy lets out a muffled moan, the praise buzzing behind his eyes, and Tozer tightens his grip in Tommy’s hair. Tommy sends a hand around to grip at Tozer’s arse, knead at it through his trousers, and Tozer’s hips thrust insistently forward, an eager spasm that brings Tommy close to choking for one dizzying moment before he regains control.

This whole time he’s hard as a hanged man, his own prick seething, trapped beneath his belt, and yet alive, so alive. Tozer is hot in his mouth and loud in his ears and the smell of him is everywhere, no death in it at all, just his sharp and heady living redolence, gun oil and salt.

“Look at me,” Tozer says, “let me see your eyes.” 

This, Tommy is reluctant to do; if his eyes are closed he can pretend Tozer hasn’t noticed that he’s started to cry, wetness rolling down his cheeks to mix with his spit.

“Eyes, Tommy, up here, I want to see you, come on,” Tozer asks again, and when Tommy ignores him: “That’s an order, Private.”

With a gasp Tommy’s eyes flutter open, flicking upwards as commanded. Through the liquid prism of his tears he sees Tozer above him, multiplied, haloed, abundant.

“There you are,” says Tozer, “oh, Christ, there you are—” 

He lets out a wrecked, heavy grunt, and spends down Tommy’s throat in shuddering pulses. There’s more of it than Tommy thought there’d be, some spilling onto his chin, which he doesn’t mind much, evidence as it is of Tozer’s continued vitality. 

Tommy leans against Tozer’s legs, feeling them tremble as Tozer takes a few steadying breaths, before Tozer hauls him up with one strong hand hooked into his braces and brings him up to eye level. He presses his palms to Tommy’s face and wipes the tears away, matter-of-factly, with the heels of them. “That’s better,” he says. 

With Tommy’s cracked mouth moistened by Tozer’s spend, kissing isn’t as painful as it might’ve been otherwise. They’re both bruised and pitted and sored all to hell, bits of them broken and falling away, but like this it’s as if they can make up, for just a moment, one whole man. 

“Your heart’s going like a hummingbird. Can hardly tell the beats apart,” Tozer says, when Tommy pulls away to breathe, one of his hands now held wide at Tommy’s chest. 

“Sorry, sorry.” 

“Don’t apologize. Let me— here.” He bears Tommy down onto the pallet, kneeling between Tommy’s legs to make work of his belt. 

He spits into his palm; the casual familiarity of such an action, as if he were merely spit off the gunwale during morning watch, sends a shiver through Tommy. Then he’s got his hand on Tommy’s prick and familiarity is dispensed with: this, now, is new, and strange, and wonderful. 

Tommy reaches his crisis almost shamefully quickly; everything goes white and there’s just Tozer’s voice, soft, “Alright, Tommy, alright,” as Tommy falls back with a smothered cry. 

When they’re cleaned and buttoned up again Tozer rocks back on his heels in a low crouch, at a distance from Tommy he feels is far too great. 

“Come here,” Tommy says. He tries not to let it turn into a plead, and fails. 

Soon the hunger and the pain and the cold will return. Soon they will take up their harnesses, and struggle against wind and weight in their quest for home. 

But for now Tommy holds Tozer, there atop the thin sheet, wraps him in his arms so he doesn’t fade away— and Tozer lets him. 

***

**Author's Note:**

> this started as a [joke tweet](https://twitter.com/areyougonnabe/status/1282913542086131718?s=21) and turned into Feelings, WHOOPS!!!!!
> 
> blame lays squarely on mr. armitage for Looking Like That and inspiring me to comb through every episode for glimpses of him thus revealing the tragic romance that was hidden there all along.... 
> 
> i'm on [tumblr](http://areyougonnabe.tumblr.com) and [twitter!](http://twitter.com/areyougonnabe)


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